Is the Alevi issue a new "Kurdish issue" in the making in Turkey? Are the Alevis of Anatolia Turks? Do they identify themselves as Turks? Do the Turks and the Turkish state accept them as Turks? If so, why so much animosity, crimes and discrimination against them? Is religion the only reason?

THE ALEVI OF ANATOLIA

Since the beginning of the Republican era, the "Turkish thesis" claimed Turkishness as a main marker of Alevism, seen as a specific Turkish religion which succeeded in combining Islam with elements of authentic Turkish culture including Shamanism, thereby developing a faith much more suitable for Turks than Arabic Islam and including authentic Turkish traits such as tolerance, humanitarianism, egalitarianism, and a stress on the inner religion of the heart - traits suppressed by Sunnism. Alevism is viewed as the true preserver of authentic Turkish culture, religion, and language amidst Ottoman pressures to Arabise or Persianise. Turks were a civilised nation in contrast to the primitive and brutal Arabs who tried to dominate Islam and enslave all other people…………..

Another view sees Alevism as the authentic expression of an Anatolian culture, and sets up an Anatolian cultural mosaic as against specific Turkish nationalism. This mosaic includes the Greeks and Armenians in addition to Turks, Kurds, and Zaza, as an important part of the mix, as they were allied to the Alevis against the Ottoman oppression. In this view Alevism is defiined in more universalist cultural forms, recognising

three factors that united in its creation:

the local Anatolian heritage; the Central Asian Turkic culture and religion migrating to Anatolia since the 11th century; and the old Anatolian Greek, Roman, and Christian inheritance. A synthesis was created of these three elements with Islam superimposed on the lot creating an Anatolian religion suitable for Anatolian populations.

The changes in Turkish society forced by Ataturk's secularisation drive resulted in deep changes in the Alevi community. Their traditional social-religious organisation broke down, and religion itself seemed to weaken as the younger generation adopted leftist and Marxist attitudes. However this did not mean the loss of ethnic identity, but rather a reinterpretation of their religious idiom and group-defining criteria in socio-political terms. Their adoption of "progressive" ideologies opened the way for alliances with other, non-Alevi, "progressive" groups, as well as for a universalization of their unique Alevi doctrines, now seen as an expression of the universal human search for equality and social justice and freedom from oppression and exploitation.Whilst the younger generation seemed to have lost its religious traditions, and many observers claimed Alevis were being assimilated into the total Turkish society, the last two decades have seen a revival of specific Alevi identity, fuelled by Alevi revival in the West (especially Germany), and by the resurgence of Islamic Sunni fundamentalism in Turkey, which has endangered the secularist Kemalist orientation of the state, and increased attacks on Alevis in press, media, and street violence. Alevis are now reconstructing their religious traditions, doctrines and organisations as well as demanding a fair share of access to the state and its resources as a separate religious/ethnic community in Turkey.The question for the Turkish state and its leaders is whether they can reconstruct a national Turkish identity that does not base itself solely on the Sunni element of society, but is secularist and pluralistic enough to accept Alevism (and Kurdism) as equal partners in the national formula, with legitimate expressions of their cultural and religious uniqueness and equal access to all state resources and power centres. This entails the use of the state and all its organs in a massive construction of a pan-national consensus on this identity, which would label as illegitimate any attacks on the former marginalised groups.A continuation of the present trend to add only the Turkish-Sunni element to the Kemalist-secularist identity, and crush all other autonomous identities, will ensure Turkey a long and violent internal struggle which will weaken the state, damage its international relations, and might in the long-term lead to its disintegration.

The Zaza-Alevica people of Turkey have Iranian Kurdish roots, and have sometimes been known as Alevi Kurds. Their language, Kirmanjki, is related to Kurdish. Although Turkish is the language used for religious ceremonies and for official purposes, Kirmanjki is the language used in the home.

The Zaza-Alevica people claim to be Muslim; however, their system of beliefs is unacceptable to the predominantly Sunni Muslim population of Turkey. The Zaza-Alevica do not observe the five fundamental requirements of Islam and are thus treated with contempt by Sunni Muslims.

The vast majority of Alevis are probably of Kizilbash or Bektashi origin, two groups subscribing to virtually the same system of beliefs but separately organized. The Alevis (Kizilbash) are traditionally predominantly rural and acquire identity by parentage. Bektashis, however, are predominantly urban, and formally claim that membership is open to any Muslim……..Linguistically, they consist of four groups: Azerbaijani Turkish, Arabic, Turkish and Kurdish (both Kurmanci and Zaza). The last two categories constitute the largest Alevi groups. Politically, Kurdish Alevis have faced the dilemma of whether their prior loyalty should be to their ethnic or religious community. Some care more about religious solidarity with Turkish Alevis than ethnic solidarity with Kurds, particularly since many Sunni Kurds deplore them. Some fear such tensions may lead to new ethno-religious conflict……..In 1978 well over 100 Alevis were massacred in Maras by members of the extreme right National Action Party. In July 1993, 67 Alevis were killed in Sivas at the climax to the eight – hour siege of a hotel by Sunnis, while the police stood by. In March 1995 more than 20 Alevis were killed by vigilantes and police in Istanbul. Alevis remain economically underprivileged…..

At least 155,000 people gathered on Sunday in Ankara as part of a demonstration organized in Ankara by the Alevi Bektaşi Federation and the Federation of Alevi Associations to voice their demands for equality. (Photo: Today's Zaman)

The history of Alevis under the Ottoman Empire has yet to be resolved thoroughly but the relationship between the Sunni and Alevi communities in Anatolia was troubled from the start. In 1511, the Ottoman army brutally suppressed a revolt by the Kızılbaş (crimson head) Turkmens of the Alevi faith on Anatolian soil and as many as 40,000 were killed. The battle of Çaldıran, fought between the Ottoman Empire under Yavuz Sultan Selim and Safavid ruler Ismail in 1514, resulted in the sultan issuing an edict to kill all the Kızılbaş in the region.The centuries that followed were also troubled, but not as brutal. In fact, the Ottoman Empire's troops -- called the janissaries -- were recruited exclusively from Bektaşi lodges. What remains difficult to assert is the extent of persecution of the Alevis in the republican era. Hundreds of Alevis were killed in pogroms, which many now believe were masterminded by shady groups inside the state, in the cities of Çorum, Yozgat and Kahramanmaraş in the 1970s. Thirty-four Alevi artists were burned to death in 1992 inside the Madımak Hotel in Sivas. There were other incidents, such as the one in the Alevi neighborhood of Gazi in İstanbul in 1995, where Alevis were targeted by individuals armed with machine guns.

16 August 2013 /TODAY'S ZAMAN, İSTANBULDeputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ was the target of an attack by a man who attempted to punch him on Friday, the first day of a two-day festival held annually to commemorate Alevi figure Hacı Bektaş, a 13th century mystic whose thoughts have been very influential among Alevi believers…….

Alevi and Bektaşi communities say they face discrimination and accuse the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government of continuing this alleged discrimination. Most recently, President Gül announced plans of the government to name a new bridge in İstanbul after Ottoman Sultan Yavuz Sultan Selim, a figure which Alevis say massacred as many as 40,000 Alevis during his wars with the Safavid Shah Ismail in the 16th century.

kimon7 - you are a typical manupilating vankler of a Greek who copies and pastes selected parts from a source just to mislead the others and prove a point that does not exist! Reh bello shillo! Your flucking pastes lack these info from the same sources:

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.Alevi and Bektashi beliefs are presumed to have their origins in Central Asian Turkmen culture. However, they are likely to have absorbed Christian beliefs when Byzantine peasantry moved into the Alevi faith during the Turkic conquest of Anatolia during the tenth and eleventh centuries, and Iranian pre-Islamic ideas, since kizilbash beliefs derived from the founders of the Iranian Safavid dynasty.

Politically, Kurdish Alevis have faced the dilemma of whether their prior loyalty should be to their ethnic or religious community. Some care more about religious solidarity with Turkish Alevis than ethnic solidarity with Kurds, particularly since many Sunni Kurds deplore them. Some fear such tensions may lead to new ethno-religious conflict.http://www.refworld.org/docid/49749c9950.html

The Alevi constitute the second largest religious community in Turkey (following the Sunnis), and number some 25% (15 million) of the total population (Alevis claim 30%-40%!). Most Alevis are ethnic and linguistic Turks, mainly of Turkmen descent from Central and Eastern Anatolia. Some 20% of Alevis are Kurds (though most Kurds are Sunnis), and some 25% of Kurds in Turkey are Alevi (Kurmanji and Zaza speakers). http://www.angelfire.com/az/rescon/ALEVI.html

During the great Turkish expansion from Central Asia into Iran and Anatolia in the Seljuk period (11-12th centuries), Turkmen nomad tribes accepted a Sufi and pro-Ali form of Islam that co-existed with some of their pre-Islamic customs. These tribes dominated central and eastern Anatolia for centuries with their religious warriors (ghazi) spearheading the drive against Byzantines and Slavs. Many Armenians converted to Turkmen type Islam while retaining some Christian practices, and some observers believe that heterodox Armenian Christianity exerted a significant influence on the beliefs of the extremist Shi`ite sects. http://www.angelfire.com/az/rescon/ALEVI.html

You must really a sad case of a person with nothing else to do in your miserable life but cut and paste passages from various sites all day - just to misinform people! Go find yourself something useful to do, like a friend from the opposite sex or perhaps a job? You must have spent all afternoon and night just to write all this rubbish - what a non-entity and a waste of human form!

Go search the roots of people living in today's Greece instead of worrying about the Alevis! Try telling Macedonians they are Greeks and see what they say!